Optics of Framber and Salazar, Bunt Attempt and More with Brian Bogusevic

Optics of Framber and Salazar, Bunt Attempt and More with Brian Bogusevic

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hard buddy Brian BOGUSMC is with us, and he's with
us every Wednesday here the Matt Thomas Show. We'll spend
ten twenty minutes with him. If you missed the conversation
with Dana Brown earlier today at nine thirty, we're gonna
play a decent chuck of that coming up at eleven twenty,
Shut your bum mess up at twelve thirty, The News
at noon, and will Ly Fritz today all between now
and two o'clocks with a busy show for you today.
Plus we got to get into the story about what

(00:23):
is happening in Los Angeles with Steve Balmer and the
Clippers and Kawhi, Leonard Uber Uber Juicy Stuff. Bogie's with
us here on the show Wednesday. What an odd evening
on many accounts, Bogie, as you saw things cross up,
a not stepping off. The offense was not really around much.

(00:46):
The two home runs made a huge difference in the
contest bunting issues. It was not a game that you're
gonna want to go watch on the Best of Spacity
home network.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Correct. Yeah, that's not going to be on the highlight reel.
You know there there are often times you can lose
the game and walk away saying, you know, had one
or two things gone our way, we'd have been there,
or you know, this didn't go right for us, But
we did a couple of things good over here. That
was one where it was just like, you can't take

(01:17):
anything from that. That was a pretty thorough beating by
the Yankees. The Yankees played the exact style of game
that they wanted to play. It didn't seem like there
were there were any answers. And I mean it was
a six run game for most of the game, it
felt like sixteen runs.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Okay, Look, the people that will really know what happened
is the pitcher, the catcher, maybe the manager after the conversation.
But just a baseball fan, cross ups happened all the time.
The problem is Bogie. If it was any other picture,
we would chalk it up to cross ups happen.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
And it can happen.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
With with with your elite pictures as well, just like
we have a fromber. But the body length, which the
prior issues of maybe issues on the field about how
defensive replacements. We don't need to go in a nauseam
on that. I'm gonna ask you whether or not you
believe him or not, but the look was just so
bad that everybody from Sports Center to Major League Baseball

(02:16):
Network to this radio show, other shows are saying, what's
going on with this guy who's supposed to be playing
for a new contract and is supposed to be either
a one or a one A on this starting pitching rotation. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
I mean, the optics of it were about as bad
as can be. And if it were a cross up
or whatever, it's a hell of a coincidence. And when
it happened. But you know, whatever happened between Fromber and
Tesso salas are they can work that out. I've seen
worse things happen in clubhouses that guys work through and

(02:48):
get over, and you know, we can get through stuff
like that. I think the bigger issue for the team,
the bigger issues of Fromber, you know, this year and
moving forward and other teams looking at it is once again,
for you know how many times here in the last
six eight weeks, you've got a guy in the mount
who is good enough to be a cy young candidate,

(03:09):
a guy who is good enough to carry a team
to the playoffs and carry them deep into the playoffs,
standing out of the mound in a huge game and
he's fighting multiple battles. I mean, it's hard enough to
go out there and you're facing the Yankees, it's the
hottest team in baseball, and you're frustrated by the rapport
with the catcher, and we've seen him be frustrated with
defensive alignments, and we've seen him be frustrated with plays
being not made behind him, And you know, your focus

(03:33):
has to be one hundred percent on I need to
get the guy out who's standing in the batter's box.
And when you're swimming in your head and there's all
kinds of other things going on, it's distracting and you're
not going to get your best performance. And it's a
team that needs Fromber's best performance to get them to
the playoffs and to you know, have any shot of
going anywhere in the playoffs, and they've consistently not gotten it,

(03:57):
not because he's not capable of it, but because it
seems distracted.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Does that move its way through the diamond, the guys
in the lineup, the clubhouse, or could there be a
certain aspect of man we love Fromber. He's our teammate,
he's our bro when he's on he's giving a six
innings seven innings of two hit ball. But sometimes that
just comes with the package and that they can shake
it off or does Sometimes that become a detriment when

(04:25):
you have a guy that you know is as good
as he is, had these kind of and meltdown maybe
too strong of a term, but uneasiness on the mound
when you are sitting here trying to hold on for
dear life to win this division.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
It's both. I mean, you know how much time guys
spend around each other during the course of the season,
how well they get to know each other. It becomes
like a sibling relationship. And you know, everybody knows that
their siblings. You love them for the good and for
the bad. But they're also the people that can frustrate
you the most, that you can fight with the most.
And you know, guys understand each other. They understand how

(04:59):
eas other, how everybody ticks, and you know, you know
what their good days are like and what their bad
days are like, and you learn how to work through
them together. But this time of the year when everybody's
supposed to be, you know, forgetting all of your personal
stuff and moving in the right in the same direction,
and it's you know, twenty six guys in the clubhouse
and the only thing that matters right now is winning games.

(05:21):
To have somebody who's so vital to that seem like
there's more going on than just that. That is about
as frustrating the thing as there can be in a clubhouse.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Brian bogos Civic was us here on Sports Talk seven
ninety Let's go to the bats. We know they've had
some issues with runners in scoring position, and we've talked
all season long about approach and changing your approach, but
staying within yourself. What do you think is just happening
as far as as a collective, because everybody seems to
be struggling, especially with the runners in scoring position situations.
As far as meetings and talking with coaches and each other,

(05:55):
what do you think is happening behind the scenes right
now with the astros and this funk they've been been in.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, I think I think in the clubhouse, the thing
that you're most trying to express and the thing that
you're most trying to spread throughout, you know, all of
the hitters and the meetings and everything is relax. The
last thing you want to do is be going up
there tight trying to do more pressing, and you don't
want to turn a second and third one out situation

(06:21):
into a pressure situation for you. Right, that's a pressure
situation for the picture. You're not supposed to be feeling like, oh,
here we go again. I hope I'm not the guy
that gets out. That's taking a positive and turning it
into a negative. So you're trying to kind of smooth
everything over and just tell everybody to relax. You know,
they're getting hits, not necessarily yesterday a lot of hits,
but in general, there's runners on base, there's stuff going on.

(06:42):
That's why they're getting those scoring opportunities. So if you
just continue to push forward, you know, law of average
says you should start to get those hits with runners
in scoring position, but and at bat with the runner
and scoring position is not the same. Pictures are going
to be more careful, they're going to go to their
best stuff. They're going to to prey on your weaknesses.
And we've seen a lot of times where a very

(07:03):
aggressive team gets into that runners in scoring position situation
and turns it up a notch and gets even more aggressive,
and pitchers are able to pray on that. There's been
a lot of that bats in those situations that have
ended early on not the best pitches, they hit well.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
One of those situations was Jeremy Pania with runners on
first and second. What did you make of the bun
attempt there?

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well, you know, first and foremost. I hope everybody understands
it wasn't a sacrifice punt, right, He's bunting to get
on base. He's trying to sneak attack the third basement.
He's sitting back on his heels deep in the hole.
That's you know, he's trying to move the line along.
You know, if it works out and you're sitting there
bases loaded for jord on it it's a smart play.
I just think where his stature is. I guess you

(07:47):
could call it in this lineup. You know how good
he's been this year, you kind of want him to
be above just trying to sneak a hit. Hey, go
be a run producer. I know you're hitting lead off,
but when you get these opportunities, we need that. I
will say this just in general, in a situation where
a pitcher is struggling to throw strikes where there's not

(08:07):
a lot of balls being put in play walk by pitch,
that's usually a good time to try to sneak a
bunt down and fields kind of on their heels a
little bit, pictures maybe trying to lay one in there.
So the rationale behind doing it isn't terrible, but the
fact that, you know, make the argument that he's the
best hitter on the team throughout the course of the season.
You need that guy to go get the big hit,

(08:29):
not just move it along.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
What about the fact that Carlos Korea has kind of
added that responsibility of taking perhaps more pitches than he
wants to because of the fact there have been so
many innings it feels like in the last two weeks
where he has seen the guys in front of him
take just a couple of handful of pitches and all
of a sudden, that picture across from him is in
a low pitch count, meaning that if he records the out,
they're gonna go back on defense, and that starting picture

(08:52):
of his own maybe back on the mountain sooner than
he wants to be.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, there's been a couple of situations where, you know,
a picture of ours has had a long inning, and
then there's been the first two outs made on three
or four pitches, and somebody's had to go up there
a couple of times, been Carlos and take a pitch,
take a strike, and just try to at the very
least make along at bad. It kind of comes with
the territory. It's just, you know, playing the game. Carlos

(09:16):
is also a guy who's comfortable hitting with two strikes.
He's comfortable going deep into the count. So for him
to be willing to take on maybe a little bit
more of that responsibility is him, you know, kind of
seeing an opportunity, I can do my part and maybe
a little bit more, because you know, the last thing
you want to do is go up there and tell
a Yiner Diez or Jose al Tuove to be somebody

(09:36):
that they're not. That's not going to be productive. It's
not necessarily about when you're swinging, go up there and
swing at all the first pitches you want, if they're
good pitches to hit, don't go up there swinging that
first pitch sliders you know, in the other batter's box
and either you know, rolling over or being down on
one every time. So it's not necessarily about when they're
swinging it's what they're swinging at in those situations.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Oka with the hitting. We talked a lot this year
about cam Smith, how good he looked early on. He
just unfortunately continues to struggle out there. What are you
seeing from him?

Speaker 2 (10:12):
A guy who's got some things to work through with
his swing and his timing and his mechanics, who's at
a point in the season where there's not a lot
of time or energy to be able to put into
getting that work, and he's just kind of got a
fight with what he's got from here on out. You know,
you can't go into the cage when you're this deep

(10:33):
into the season and put in our long hitting sessions
trying to figure it out and going out for early
batting practice every day like you can in spring training
in the first month of the season. At some point
in the year, your swing is your swing. And right
now he's backed a little bit to where he was
to start the year. It's a little bit stale, it's
a little bit late, but you know he's trying to fight.
He's trying to hit the ball the other way because
that's what he can do. Right now. You know, every

(10:55):
once in a while, he's trying to use the count
in his favor to be able to, you know, cheat
a little bit and get the head out. But it's
one of he's just in the spot right now where
it's your swing is what it is, and go out
there and fight and try to produce what he can
and that's what you got for the rest of the year.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Thank you for your efforts as always, my friend on
TV and radio. We appreciate it and we'll talk with
you soon.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Thanks for the time, all right, thank you.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
You got a Brian Bogastic with us every Wednesday here
on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
On you